R.E.S.P.E.C minus

Philippa and I settled down with some fizzy pop and a bowl of snacks or two and had a nice, belated Christmas movie cuddle-up session last night. After my health buggered most of our Yuletide plans, it was nice to get a chance to just be together and enjoy each other and watch something while annihilating some chocolates. The only downside being that the film wasn't as good as either of us had hoped. We went for "Respect" - the biopic of Aretha Franklin. A well-made film, indeed, but Philippa's response was "Well, I didn't learn anything about her that I didn't already know" and my response was "If you edited out all the clips of Jennifer Hudson singing, it would have been about 12 minutes long."
I know the music has to be represented, but I think they went a bit over the top with it. Ms Hudson does a fine interpretation of Ms Franklin, but if I wanted to hear so many of her songs I could have just put on a playlist, or watched one of Aretha's many live appearances and concerts that are available on YouTube. Effectively, we were watching someone do karaoke for the best part of two hours.
It seems to be the trend with these movies about musicians. It was my big disappointment with 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - everyone said how brilliantly they recreated Queen's Live Aid performance at the end, and I was just thinking, "What was the point? We can all see that footage any time we want to, why not just show the whole clip on screen instead of mimicking it, or better yet fill that time with more of the band's story?" I'd rather learn more about how the songs were written and produced than just hear someone doing a cover version of them.
Anyway, I shan't go on....

RC 6-1-24